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Marion Jones Serves Up A World-Class Helping Of Gall

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By JOE HENDERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 24, 2008

Marion Jones was a world-class sprinter, a world-class cheat, and a world-class liar.

You can now add that she has world-class gall.

She has asked President Bush to commute her six-month prison sentence for lying to federal agents about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and a check-fraud scam. Bush, by the way, is the only president to include a rant against steroids in a State of the Union message. She won't get much sympathy from him.

She sure didn't get much sympathy from Doug Logan, CEO of USA Track and Field. His letter to the president - which we've conveniently printed here for your reading pleasure - is the absolute right response. She is a fraud and the only thing she is sorry about is being caught.

I was among the attendees at the now-infamous news conference in New York a few months before the 2004 Olympic Games. Rumors about her were swirling then and I remember her daring anyone to drug test her. I remember her defiance. I remember how she ridiculed the notion that she had gained her Olympic medals by cheating.

She was lying then. And she is flat out crazy now if she thinks anyone has a dram of sympathy for the plight she is in today. She had to give back five medals - three gold, two bronze - she "won" in the 2000 Games at Sydney. Teammates on her relay teams for two of those events had to return their medals as well because of her deceit.

Kids looked up to her. Fans adored her.

It was all an illusion.

One thing that's real, though, is that her good name has been destroyed. Why in the world she thinks the president would consider her for a pardon is beyond me.

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